


we're too young to end like this

by rhysymmetra



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: (spoilers it's Lose You Again by Walk The Moon), Angst and Feels, I can't bring myself to care cus if I were him i'd be Pisst, M/M, Mention of body mutilation, Pining, Trans Rhys, Trans Vaughn, Vaughn's gonna seem OOC because I explored the anger and sadness he probably felt but uh, brownie points if you know what song this fic is loosely based on, handsome jack is also loosely mentioned please don't kill me i had to roast rhys, i don't know much about Lorelei so she just acts like her wonderful voice actor Ciaran oops, straight up sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 17:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20492855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysymmetra/pseuds/rhysymmetra
Summary: After a full year without hearing a single thing from Rhys, Vaughn is invited to an Atlas gala to show off Rhys' latest gun design. Emotions are vented to trusty friends, mistakes are made, and as always things don't go quite right for our heroes.(Big thank you to @retromochi on Twitter for beta'ing this!)





	we're too young to end like this

“No.” he growled out, swiping the shiny invitation off the table and turning his back to the exasperated woman. She sighed loudly and squatted down, picking the invitation back up and dusting it off. “I get it, okay? You two haven’t talked in a while, you’re mad at him, join the club. This just… This seems important to him, Vaughn. He wants you to be there.”  
“I wanted him to be there after we opened the vault, but where was he? Oh, that’s right, he hopped on the first ride he could find to Promethea.”

“I know you’re upset, I am too, but-”  
“But what, Sasha?” The man turned around and she saw tears of anger in his eyes. “But his needs are more important than mine?”  
“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it. Vaughn, this isn’t like you. Usually even when you’re mad, you’re there for people.”

Vaughn scoffed indignantly. “Yeah. I usually am. He knows that. He sent you because of course Vaughn the doormat is gonna come crawling back to him the second he snaps his fingers. I’m not that guy anymore. Tell Rhys if he needs someone to come worship him, he can look in a mirror.” Every word he spoke dripped with bitterness. 

Sasha stood silent, unsure of how to respond. She looked at the ground and began again, much quieter than before. “Believe me, you’re entitled to feel like that. Rhys has been pretty high on his own drama lately. Hell, Fi and I are in contact with Lorelei daily because she needs someone to vent to about his latest meltdown.”  
Vaughn’s mouth twitched but he dipped his head down hoping Sasha didn’t see.  
Sasha continued, changing her voice to suit a bad approximation of Rhys’ right hand man. “Cor, guv’nor! Your mate’s gone bonkers, so he has!”

Vaughn snorted before he could stop himself. Sasha’s face lit up as she moved closer and pulled him into a one-armed hug. “There you are, Vaughn.” She sighed happily. “I’ve missed you.”

He rested his head against her arm, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’ve missed you too.”

They stood like that for another few moments before Vaughn added “I’m still not going.”  
Sasha nodded slowly, her face betraying her disappointment. “Okay. I can’t force you to. I mean, I could, but that’s so much more effort than I want to put into this.”  
“I dare you to try and take me.” Vaughn spoke, Sasha able to hear the grin in his voice. She grinned in return, moving her arm so that she had him in a headlock.  
“Try and get out of this one, tough guy.” She quipped playfully.

They ended up wrestling on the dusty ground outside, both laughing loudly and obnoxiously, even by Pandoran standards. They had sparred together before and always ended up being a good match in strength. Each of them got stronger with each day that passed, and Sasha found herself reluctantly impressed with how many times Vaughn directly countered her offensive attempts. After around twenty minutes they ended up at a stalemate, Sasha having Vaughn pinned to the ground while Vaughn had his legs wrapped around hers in a way that prevented her from tapping the ground. “Draw?” He smiled up at her, eyes glinting triumphantly. She rolled her eyes. “Fine, draw.” she replied.

He let go of her legs and she quickly stood up, wiping her hands on her jacket with a disgusted look on her face. “Glad that’s over. You really need a shower, man. Especially before you come to Rhys’s big gala.”  
Vaughn laughed heartily, stretching his arms as he stood up. “Still not going, but nice try.”  
Sasha didn’t respond, taking a seat on a rickety rocking chair outside of Vaughn’s newest shack. She frowned as her sleeves caught on a few splinters of wood, and instead opted to fold her arms across her chest. 

“Yeah, sorry. Haven’t gotten round to smoothing that thing out yet.” 

“Why do you even have this? I thought the whole point of being a bandit king or whatever is that you’re wild and gross and untamed. Why sully your image with a nice little furnished home?”  
Sasha’s tone was lightly mocking, but when Vaughn sat on the stool beside her with a stoic look on his face, she instantly regretted it.

“I thought he was gonna visit.” He said softly. “I wanted it to be nice for him.”  
The man spoke so quietly that she almost didn’t pick up on the way his voice cracked when he said ‘nice’. Almost.

“I’m sorry, Vaughn.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, patting it firmly.  
“I’m sorry I didn’t realise how much this was breaking you before I came here. Look, you really don’t have to come. Hell, I wouldn’t come if I were you. Please, just... promise me you’ll at least think about it? If not for Rhys, for me and Fiona? She wants to see you too. You still have, uh… Around a month to think it over.” 

The bearded man nodded and sighed. “Fine. I’ll think about it, but that’s it. No promises.”

Vaughn thought about the gala a great deal.  
He stapled the stupid shiny holographic silver and bright red invitation to a corkboard above his gadget blueprints desk. He stared at the gaudy thing daily, at Rhys’s stupid smug face and the hideously misshapen gun in his hand. Not that he’d ever admit it to anyone, but he’d examined every detail in the thing and it scared the hell out of him. The reason Rhys was throwing this gala was apparently that he was about to unveil a new gun. The invitation boasted that it had the bonus of new and game-changing technology, an add-on that was supposed to make your shooting and looting ‘a little more personal’. Vaughn had theories as to what that meant, but none of them added up. All he knew for certain was that he was worried.  
He hated it.  
He was trying with every single part of himself to stop caring about Rhys, to stop thinking about him, to stop laying awake at night with a pain in his chest as if he’d been shot because he was so fucking in love with the man who left him for a business venture.  
He was trying, and he was failing.

He thought about the gala when he drew up blueprints.  
He thought about the gala when he went hunting for local wildlife to cook and eat.  
He thought about the gala when he invaded bandit camps on recruitment missions.  
He couldn’t get it out of his head. 

Logically he knew he should stick to his guns and give Rhys the cold shoulder. He just couldn’t. He’d known Rhys since college. He’d known Rhys since his name wasn’t Rhys, and since his own name wasn’t Vaughn. They’d grown together and changed together. They made so many promises to be there for each other when it mattered. Why did Rhys have to go and break those promises? Why wasn’t Vaughn enough anymore? He was no longer ashamed of how many times he cried himself to sleep over the other man. How many times he peered out of the window, his last remaining shreds of hope dulling every time he saw no sign of Rhys. 

Fuck, he couldn’t even come and invite Vaughn to his gala in person. 

Vaughn shouldn’t go. He shouldn’t. He should never talk to Rhys again. He should dedicate his life as a bandit leader to tearing down Atlas. 

As it was, the night before the gala, he called Sasha’s ECHO device and simply said, in a weak voice, “I’m going. I have to see him.”

And so the next evening Vaughn headed out unbelievably early to find a Quick Change station and get himself into an outfit a little more fit for a gala. He had already taken a long and thorough bath, trimming his beard neatly and washing his hair with his homemade shampoo. It was mostly deactivated slag and crushed berries, but it did the trick and made him smell soft and fruity. 

As he stood facing the Quick Change station and cycled through the options, he found himself doing a double take at the small scanner to the side. He swore he’d seen something exactly like it recently, although he hadn’t visited a Quick Change in months. Shaking his head and trying to concentrate, he picked out a few options that looked like they might tie well together.

Looking down at his body as the machine made digital whirring noises, he watched as a line of bright blue light moved up his body and changed his appearance. It tickled a little. He closed his eyes and stifled his laughter as it moved up to his neck and head. When the machine was silent again he opened his eyes and dusted off a mirror sitting conveniently beside the station to look at himself. He was in an all-black suit with a glowing green bow-tie matching the one he’d had way back when he worked at Hyperion. He had similar glasses to the ones he’d had before too, and his longer hair was neatly tied back into a bun. Glancing around, he quickly finger gunned at his reflection. “Lookin’ good.” He muttered proudly under his breath. 

If Rhys’ jaw didn’t hit the floor upon seeing him, the guy might’ve gone blind with power. 

After fixing his jacket and tie, he quickly hurried to the nearby space travel station.  
The trip from Pandora to Promethea was long and rough in economy class, but he flashed his shiny invitation at the steward bots and was personally escorted to his own private first class ship. 

The doors slid open for him and he stepped in.  
The ship was shiny, decorated with long red LED lights across the sides and a large shiny Atlas logo on both the outside and inside. It was tacky, but Vaughn saw a mini bar and a sign boasting a strong ECHOnet connection so he wasn’t about to complain. He took a seat in the luxurious leather booth to his right and rested his hands on the smooth and clinical metal table in front of him.  
He went to lean his head on his hands when suddenly a metal panel connected to the table flipped up and hit him on the chin.

“Ow!”  
“Vaughn? Is that you? Sorry, luv, I didn’t know you were gonna do that.”

Vaughn rubbed his chin and looked at the panel, which was in fact a screen. On the screen was a woman with a headset on, glancing at the camera every few seconds while the jet whirred to life. “This is Captain Lorelei speaking! We’re ready to rock and roll! Might wanna hold onto something for this bit.”

Vaughn paled and grabbed a handy arm rest beside him. He stared at the screen. “You’ve done this before, right?”  
Lorelei simply laughed and thrust the levers in both her hands forward. The ship lurched and tilted at an alarming angle. Vaughn simply held on for dear life. Lorelei’s laughter died down as they broke the atmosphere, the ship steadying with her newfound focus. Not making direct eye contact as she presumably kept her eyes on the bright starry area of space she was maneuvering them around. Vaughn shifted in his seat, letting go of his white-knuckled grip on the arm rest.

“How did you recognise me?” He asked, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’ve never met.”  
“Nah, but Rhys talks about you. Like, a lot. It’d be fuckin’ annoying if I wasn’t such a sucker for romance.” She smiled sweetly at him. Vaughn simply rolled his eyes and looked out the window.  
“Yeah, he’s such a sappy romantic that he hasn’t spoken to me or seen me in… What, a year? Maybe two? So long I forgot what he looked like ‘til I got this stupid invitation.”  
Lorelei laughed softly, glancing at the camera again. “You’re a little spitfire, aren’t ya? Rhys is always talking about what a sweetheart you are, how you love to help people, how he’d be nothing without you… But I suppose you’re also a bandit lord now, eh? Can’t be soft anymore.”  
Vaughn choked out a short bark of a laugh. “That’s what he’s been saying? Bullshit. If he’s nothing without me, then why the fuck did he abandon me? I-” He shut his mouth and closed his eyes, breathing in then out.

“Sorry. This isn’t your fault. Rhys is a good guy, deep down… I think. I hope. I just kinda feel like he shoved me to the side.”

“It’s not like that, my love.” Lorelei’s voice went soft, almost cooing.  
“He didn’t mean to. He had a plan, honest. Always bangin’ on about how much you changed on your little adventure, how much he still felt like he had to change to catch up with ya. That’s what all the dramatics are for. He’s really excited about finally feeling like he’s good enough for you.”

Vaughn blinked, furrowing his brows and shaking his head like a wet skag as he felt tears prick his eyes. “I liked him the way he was. I’d rather have had him by my side as he was than running around Promethea with something to prove. I know change is a part of life, but he’s changed so much I thought he’d forgotten me. What if I get there and we just don’t click anymore? What if we’re too different now? Why does no one get it? I just-”

He suppressed a sob and shut his lips tight as the tears quickly filled up and escaped his eyes. 

“I don’t wanna lose him again.” He choked out, voice quiet and unsure.  
In that moment Lorelei glanced at the camera and did a double take as she finally saw the man Rhys had described. The old version of him, with everything to lose and everything to prove.

“I thought he died in the fall of Helios.” Vaughn continued, furiously wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “I spent a year thinking the man I loved was dead. Then he was alive again. I was so happy, Lorelei. I remember the way he picked me up when we hugged for the first time in a long time. It felt like he didn’t want to let me go. I didn’t want him to either. What the hell happened to that Rhys?”

Lorelei huffed out a breath, her eyes concentrated carefully in front of her. She blew some hair out of her face with another breath and then pursed her lips, glancing at the camera. “Life doesn’t stop for anyone, eh? Sometimes I’m not too pleased with the path he’s on either, but I s’pose we both gotta trust him to make his own decisions.”

Vaughn nodded solemnly.

“Still though,” she continued with a smile “He invited you tonight. Maybe he’ll make a romantic gesture! Who knows… If the guy can commit to running a company, maybe he’s gonna pop the question.”  
Vaughn blushed and sputtered “W-What?! No! I… I hadn’t even… You think?”  
“Don’t hold your breath. Just saying, I’d wanna lock you down.” She winked at him. “You seem like a real catch, Vaughn. For what it’s worth, I’m rooting for you two.”  
A smile slowly spread across his own face, and he glanced out the window to watch as they approached Promethea.

“Thanks, Lorelei.”

Once they’d landed, Lorelei had popped her head out of the cockpit to quickly wish him good luck and fuss over his tear-reddened eyes. “Wish I could go in with ya.” She confessed, biting her lip thoughtfully “But I’m picking up a lotta VIPs tonight. Best of luck, eh?” She finger gunned at him and, with a wink, slid back into the cockpit and shut the door. 

Vaughn stepped off the ship and heard the doors whoosh shut behind him, as the ship loudly took off and he was left alone in front of Atlas HQ. It was bigger than he could ever have imagined, with bright blinding neon lights surrounding the skyline around it. He moved to the large metal doors at the very front, and an Atlas security guard put a firm hand on his chest to stop him. He held up his invite once again and, once it had been thoroughly inspected, was allowed in through the doors. His jaw dropped once he got inside. The ceilings were tall, chandeliers with different coloured neon lights lit the hall ahead of him. He was overwhelmed and would have easily gotten lost, if it weren’t for gilded silver plaques on each wall next to each door. He read them out under his breath as he moved along.

Stairs to cell block 1A  
Stairs to cell block 2A  
General bathrooms  
Meeting room 1  
Atlas member bathrooms  
Meeting room 2  
RS Private Quarters 2  
Main Event Room

He paused and took a step back. RS Private Quarters? Rhys’ initials? Looking left and right, he made what could have been a fatal mistake and pushed the door open. Odd that it wasn’t locked.  
“Greetings, Vaughn.” a digital voice said.  
Vaughn looked around, paranoid, before noting that the door handle had lit up in the shape of his own hand print. Biometric security. His heart fluttered a little at the idea that Rhys had considered the possibility of Vaughn accessing his spare private room of his own volition. 

Flicking the light on, he was instantly greeted with Handsome Jack posters lining the walls, floor, and ceiling. There was a singular Hyperion loot crate in the corner. Cursing his own curiosity, Vaughn walked into the hellish box of Jack’s face and leaned down to open the crate. With a click, the lid unfolded to show a singular ECHO-eye with a long wire trailing behind it. 

His stomach churning, Vaughn instantly recognised it as the ECHO-eye Rhys had ripped out of himself to get rid of Jack. 

He thought Rhys would have disposed of it by now. Why was it still sitting here where anyone could have taken it? Frowning, he made an executive decision and tucked the ECHO-eye into his jacket pocket, before standing up and quickly making his exit. He moved back over to the ‘Main Event Room’ sign and sighed.

“Here goes nothing.” he muttered to himself.

As he pushed open the gilded glass doors to the main event room, he didn’t know what he expected to see. Maybe a large room full of well dressed people sipping champagne and talking in vague terms about competitive murder. Or stocks. Something like that. He’d been to a few Hyperion mixers, and they always tended to go like that, with a little more blood mixed in. Maybe that was what he expected. He certainly didn’t expect to open the door and see an entirely empty yet fully decorated room, with an impressive display of lights and food service and towers of champagne flutes… And only two people. 

Two people on an unlit stage at the front of the room. Two people with a shiny new gun on a podium between them. Two people with a moustache and a strip of red hair respectively. His face lit up until they continued their conversation and he realised they had been yelling at each other. He couldn’t see much more than their silhouettes from where he stood, but Fiona gestured furiously at the gun as she yelled.

“How could you be so stupid?!”  
“I’m not stupid! If you can’t see what a great idea this is, you’re the one that’s stupid!”  
“Rhys, you-”  
“I told you when I started this company that I was gonna fix things from the inside out!”  
“This isn’t fixing things!” Fiona grabbed the gun off its podium and, to both Rhys and Vaughn’s horror, pointed it directly at Rhys.  
“What are you doing.” Rhys was no longer yelling, and he didn’t phrase his sentence like a question. He sounded weak, scared, and Vaughn’s heart beat against his ribcage as he finally heard a trace of the man he knew from college. Before all of this happened.

“You put a face scanner on a mass produced weapon!” Fiona yelled, her voice breaking. “You made it so that anyone with this gun can point it at someone and know all of their personal information! Every single thing on every single database in the galaxy! None of this is striking you as fucked up?! Not a single part of you thinks this could be used in the wrong ways?!” she sounded shrill now, pleading. 

Rhys held his hands up, backing away, but Fiona simply kept stepping forward to seal the gap between them.  
Vaughn stayed frozen in place, almost as though there were powers being used upon him, keeping him there. He couldn’t move, couldn’t drag his eyes away from the scene in front of him. A deep dark feeling of dread pooled in his gut as he simply stood and watched his best friend hold a gun to the head of the man he loved.

“Fiona, put down the gun.” Rhys shakily breathed out. Vaughn could hear now that he was crying. The arm Fiona held the gun in was shaking.  
“Cancel the gala.”  
“Fiona, please don’t-”  
“I don’t want to!” She was definitely crying now too. “I don’t want to, Rhys! You’re one of my best friends! Of course I don’t want to. Please… please don’t make me.”

“Fiona, put the gun down. J-Just… We can talk it out, please.”  
Vaughn felt a rush of joy at the sight of the less-than-confident Rhys he knew, followed very swiftly by crushing and overwhelming guilt. Rhys’ life was in danger. He should climb onto the stage and de-escalate. Why wouldn’t his damn legs move?!

“Promise me you’ll stop this.”  
“I-I can’t. Fiona, you don’t understand, this is all I have!”  
“That’s part of the problem! There was a time when all you had was me, Sasha and Vaughn! We-we could’ve all fixed the system from the outside, but you had to go back to your Jack-worshipping roots!”  
Rhys’ face went cold and stern. He stepped towards Fiona, the gun now resting firmly against his forehead.

“I am not Jack.” 

He didn’t exactly yell the words. It was a low growl, just barely loud enough for Vaughn to pick up. It was something Vaughn had never heard from Rhys before, and although it was Rhys’ voice, it sure as hell sounded like Jack. Vaughn found himself edging closer to the stage, going unnoticed by his two best friends.

“You don’t get it. I’m gonna make this shithole of a galaxy better.” Rhys gritted out.

Fiona laughed through her tears. “Yeah? You’re making it better, huh? Alright, so what happens if a Maliwan operative scans someone and sees that they don’t belong to any gun company?”  
“We-”  
“What happens if you’re ex-company and livin’ the bandit life? How does that reflect? Does it show off both? So both sides will scan you and want to kill you?”  
“Let me-”  
“If one of your Atlas goons scanned me and saw that I was some ‘no-good scheming Pandoran scum’, what do you think they’d do based on that alone?”

Rhys looked shocked at the mere suggestion.  
“I-I- I don’t-”  
“Face it, Rhys, you haven’t thought about it. You haven’t had to think about shit like that in a while. Sitting up here on your ivory throne, throwing your weight around. I don’t even know who I’m talking to.”  
Rhys stared at her for a split second then pinched the bridge of his nose, his metal hand clenched at his side.

“Fiona, I think you should leave.”

The woman didn’t respond, clicking a button on the gun. A screen popped up an inch away from Rhys’ face. “Rhys Strongfork.” She read out. “Aged 30.”

“Stop it.”

Rhys sounded cold and serious again. She continued nonetheless. “CEO of the Atlas corporation. 6 feet tall. Brown hair. One blue eye and one brown.”

“Fiona.” the man warned, a hand reaching out.

“Gender…” Fiona paused and raised an eyebrow. “Huh. I guess being a fascist doesn’t allow much time to change your ECHOnet identity.”

Rhys didn’t even respond, gritting his teeth and pulling his metal arm back to throw a punch.

It happened almost in slow motion.

As Rhys threw his fist forward, Fiona’s lightning quick reflexes had her finger on the trigger and pulling it before he could even hit her. Stepping to the side, both Fiona and Vaughn watched in abject horror as the man fell to the ground. 

He didn’t move. Not even a single miniscule twitch. Blood began to pool underneath his head.

Fiona shook, eyes screwed shut as she was overcome with sobs. Vaughn moved closer, dazed, until he was right beside the stage. He stared ahead at Rhys’ lifeless body just inches away. His eyes snapped over to Fiona as the gun fell to the floor with a loud clatter. A buzzing noise sounded and the same screen he’d seen a minute ago appeared over Rhys’ head.

Rhys Strongfork.  
CEO of the Atlas corporation.  
Status: Deceased.


End file.
